In no particular order, some of the books I have read this year or am reading and feel like talking about. 1. Frogkisser! – It’s so cute and absolutely trademark Garth Nix. He’s like the Australian Neil Gaiman if you don’t know him; if you do, and you haven’t read this, why on earth not!? …

The minute I saw the name for this book, I exclaimed—ostensibly to my husband, but my cat or the open air would have sufficed—”of course this needs to be a book. Why has no one thought of this before? The Refrigerator Monologues—it’s so obvious.” But like many of the most interesting things, it’s only very …

Continuing the theme of Russian-related YA, I wanted to draw attention to a 2015 release that is a little younger than YA and a lot more amazing than anticipated. Very–very–loosely based on the tale of Red Riding Hood, it tells the tale of Feo, a “dark and stormy girl” who has no fear of the …

Graham-Jones’s Mongrels was a sleeper hit for me from 2016, a story about a young man who’s a late-bloomer in his family of werewolves. Did it say anything new about that beaten-to-death subject, the werewolf? Not really. Did it say anything new about the people who are werewolves? Hell yes. It stripped away all the …

Aurora has a big secret. She’s not special. Oh, she’s a princess. She’s heir to a city-state and has never known physical hardship. She’s lovely, adept in languages, a gifted horsewoman, and a practiced fighter. But Aurora has no magic, and in Caelira, that’s the only skill that really matters for a monarch. After all, …

When I was younger, I always wanted a twin. Siblings were fine, but a twin–that would really have been something. Someone just like me who I could always depend on, who would be there to play with and comfort me no matter what. Twins, I believed, were just a little more magical. Actual twins can …

Breathing new life into old characters is the second-oldest tradition in storytelling, right after making those characters up in the first place. Oh, I could tell you about modern trends, what Wicked and The Red Tent and The Mists of Avalon did, but then I’d also have to mention Chretien de Troyes’s Arthurian retellings from the …

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of Douglas Adams. On May 11, 2001, Douglas Adams, author of the Trilogy in Five series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, died of a heart attack. Every year on May 25th, we remember Douglas Adams by carrying a towel in his honor and …

A note before I get started: this book should come with one of those advisory warnings, except instead of warning parents against explicit lyrics, it should just warn everyone about lyrics. Just lyrics. Because this song has been stuck in my head for a week. Do you know how many years it’s been since I …

Even though Mindy McGinnis is an accomplished author, this feels very much like a first book. I suppose it’s because Given to the Sea is her first foray into fantasy, a genre divide that strikes some more than others. And it seems to have stricken her as a dramatic one, since that’s the first thing …